forwarded to Tepeaca, where their cadaverous complexion and swollen bodies procured for them the nickname of 'panzaverdetes,' or green paunches. Hardship and bad food had carried a number past relief, and even in Tepeaca several died, including Camargo, as Bernal Diaz believes.
A month later, after the Quauhquechollan expedition, another vessel arrived with about fifty soldiers,[1] under Miguel Diaz de Auz, an Aragonian cavalier. He had been sent to reinforce Pineda, but after remaining at Rio Pánuco for a month, without seeing even a native, he had come down to search for the fleet. The fame of Cortés and the promise of rich spoils induced him to follow the preceding party, in contradistinction to which his stout and lusty recruits were dubbed the 'strong-backs.'[2] Hearing that two other vessels had been fitted out to follow the Pánuco expeditions, and were probably now cruising along the coast, Cortés ordered a crew to be sent in pursuit, with the sole desire, as he expressed it, to save them from the fate which had so nearly overtaken Camargo. One was never heard of, and the other, the largest, entered the port before the searching vessel had left, it seems, bringing about one hundred and twenty men and sixteen horses. Camargo was induced to remonstrate with the captain against proceeding to Pánuco, since the result could only be disastrous, the native lord having, beside, tendered allegiance to Cortés in Montezuma's time.[3]
- ↑ 'Con hasta treinta hombres de mar y tierra.' Cortés, Cartas, 154. 'Sus soldados, que eran mas de cincuenta, y mas siete cauallos,' says Bernal Diaz, Hist. Verdad., 114; and, since Cortés would be less apt to indicate large accessions, he may be correct.
- ↑ 'Este fue el mejor socorro. . .Diaz de Auz sirvió muy bien a su Magestad en todo lo que se ofreciò en las guerras,. .traxo pleyto despues. sobre el pleyto de la mitad de Mestitan,. .conque le den la parte de lo que rentare el pueblo masde dos mil y quinientos pesos.' Bernal Diaz, Hist. Verdad., 114-15. He was excluded from the town itself, owing to cruel treatment of Indians.
- ↑ 'El señor de aquel rio ytierra, que se dice Pánuco, se habia dado por vasallo de V. M., en cuyo reconocimiento me habia enviado á la ciudad de Tenuxtitan, con sus mensajeros, ciertas cosas.' Cortés, Cartas, 144-5. But this is probably a mere assertion, since the Spanish expeditions had never been higher than Almería, and the cacique could have had no inducement for submitting.
